About us

We're a small business based in the Cathedral City of Exeter, UK. We work with schools around the UK and in 12 other countries around the world. Our talented team of 3 provide an exceptional level of service, as you may have already read on our testimonials page.

Ben Dunford - Director

I started teaching about 10 years ago after completing a computer science degree at Exeter University. I loved teaching from the moment I started, but also saw loads of areas in which schools were doing things really inefficiently which started me on the path towards creating epraise. Things very quickly moved on from a few time saving ideas, to a comprehensive collection of tools designed to motivate students, engage parents and save teachers time.
Teaching is my passion and I still teach one day a week at a local secondary school. This allows me to have a working experience of using epraise in the classroom and means I am part of a school community that can help me understand how to improve what we do.

Illustrator

Photoshop

HTML

CSS

JavaScript

MySQL

PHP

iOS/Swift

Louise Dunford - Office Manager

I started working for epraise part-time in 2013 to help out Ben with all the paperwork that comes with having your own business. 12 months later I became epraise's first full time employee! I've stepped into the role of Office Manager since then taking responsibility for our finances amongst other things. I spend my days doing demos, scheduling tweets, updating the finances, doing design work and supporting our customers. Which makes me a pretty good multi-tasker!
The thing that I really enjoy about epraise is talking to our schools and providing them with support and ideas. This is something that I pride myself on and that we all work hard to achieve as a team too!

Illustrator

Photoshop

InDesign

Experience Design

HTML

Social media

Charlotte Lawrence - Sales and Support

I joined epraise in 2016 and it feels great to be a part of the team. My role is really varied and I get to provide daily support to schools, perform demos, assist with marketing campaigns and much more. It's great how no two days are the same and how epraise gives you that opportunity to be creative and have your say. I think epraise is a great business and tool which is another reason I was attracted to working here as I think it is important to enjoy where you work and to feel passionate about it.
Prior to epraise I worked in the sales industry which has been a great step to where I am now. However now that I am with epraise I look forward to a long future with them.

Illustrator

InDesign

Experience Design

Office

Data analysis

James Carr - Web Developer

I joined in Autumn this year after leaving the dizzying heights of the hospitality world and teaching myself to code. What started out as a hobby quickly became a passion and now if I'm not watching Moana with my daughter or redecorating with my girlfriend I'm usually coding, or thinking about coding. Working at epraise is a great experience where everybody has a 'get involved' attitude and there is a real sense of passion for what we do. The great thing about this role is that you never know what might come up during the day, from updating and working on new features to responding to customer calls and queries every day is a new challenge. Oh and everyone is understanding of my love of Star Wars, which is always a bonus!

HTML

CSS

JavaScript

MySQL

PHP

iOS/Swift

Joomla

Our history

Originally created in 2009 by Ben Dunford, we're extremely proud of what we have created and how far we have come. Below is a brief history of how epraise came to be what it is today.

2017 - Parental communications

This year we've continued to expand on our parental communication options, including a new add-on for parents' evenings that should make arranging and analysing parents' evenings much simpler. We've got lots more planned, so keep checking back to see what's been happening recently.

2016 - Homework and more

In 2016 we launched our hugely popular homework add-on, allowing teachers, students and parents to manage homework in a much simpler, easier and quicker way. We released a new Android app to compliment our iOS app that we're constantly adding new features to. We were also really excited to introduce our new Get Involved feature, where students can sign up to take part in clubs and activities within school. Our sales and support representative Charlotte joined us in April.

2015 - Going mobile

In 2015 we spent a long time making our site much more mobile friendly and we released a simple iOS app. We redesigned all of our badges and images and added or updated over 150 features. In January, we attended the BETT show and were shortlisted for the ICT Tools for Learning and Teaching award. We also launched a new sister site in collaboration with a couple of local schools, www.eparents.co.uk, designed to support parent-teacher communication. Our programmer Chris joined us in April.

2014 - The big rebuild

2014 is the year that epraise went beyond just being a rewards system, to a system capable of helping teachers organise their class. Through tools such as the marksheet and classnotes for setting homework, epraise is now way ahead of the competition. We also spent a lot of time on rebranding and redesigning epraise to make it easier to use and much better looking, with the help of Louise who started work for epraise in January.

2013 - Integration options

In 2013 new features such as the MIS Link, LDAP logins, activities, classroom tools, seating plans, FSM/G&T/SEN analysis, student photos and much more were added. By the end of the year 75 schools were using epraise. Ben won the Express and Echo's award for 'Young Entrepreneur of the Year'.

2012 - Growing quickly

In 2012, the focus moved towards teachers adding points directly into the system. Milestones, accolades, certificates and reports were all added along with many other great features. 2012 was also the first year that epraise attended the BETT show as part of 'Innovation Alley', where it was very well received. By the end of the year, around 35 schools were using epraise.

2011 - Innovative features

During 2011, several important features were added, including the live stream, achievements and milestones which were quite unique compared to anything else available at the time. By the end of 2011, 6 schools were using epraise.

2010 - A new business

In September 2010, three schools started using epraise to help motivate their students. It was a very basic system where students claimed their own points using unique codes and then were able to purchase prizes from a shop that the schools ran. During this year, APIs, student profiles, draws and charitable donations were added to make the system much more appealing to schools.

2009 - A bright idea

When awarding commendations to students Ben realised that his school was wasting a lot of resources on a paper based reward system, which was only motivating the younger students and having no impact on the older students whatsoever. He decided he could come up with something better and after some discussion and trials, epraise was born.

2007 - Becoming a teacher

After learning what it means to be a teacher, Ben went to teach at a large secondary school in Devon. During this time, he worked with South West Teacher Training on their website and created the 'portal', revolutionising the way that trainees evidenced their lessons by putting everything online. 10 years on and South West Teacher Training still use the systems developed during this time.